Leadership is the process of steering a group of individuals in either an organization or association, an ongoing course of manipulating demeanor. It entails mutual relationships between a leader and the subjects. To attain goals, a leader must influence the behavior of the individuals that he leads. Leadership involves a range of interactions among workers of an organization and outside parties like clients and customers. Therefore, it means that leadership requires skills that can help ensure that an organization's interests are well taken care of. Besides, leadership is a dynamic progression worth a study to cope with the changes initiated by the world. One must have the desire to lead for him to become a good leader. The paper is an overview of Elon Musk, the leader of Tesla. The assessment and analysis of the leadership style of Elon Musk, leader of my choice, is done by reflecting on the concepts of leadership.
The name of the leader of my choice is Elon Musk. His title is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tesla ( Sikochi et al., 2018) . His role is leading the product designs, engineering, worldwide manufacturing of electric vehicles, battery products, and solar energy products. As said above, the name of the Company, where Elon is the CEO, is Tesla. Tesla is an energy industry with a mission to see the world accelerated and transitioned to sustainable energy. The company produced its first merchandise, the roadster sports car, in 2008. Its second product, Model S Sedan, was launched in 2012 ( Fleming, 2013) . The model S was rated the best and marked an actual mileage in the company’s progress. The same model was the first to gain a five-star rate in terms of safety in all the categories and sub-categories in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s test. The company has held a good record in producing valuable products in both electric vehicles and energy storage products. The products produced by Tesla are highly rated and recommended; additionally, Tesla’s products have significantly impacted the world as they have solved a range of issues in the automotive and energy sectors.
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Tesla has a fascinating organizational culture where human resource competency essential for innovative merchandises in the world automotive business is created (Pauline, 2019). An industry’s culture represents the customs and values that delineate employees. Tesla’s culture is centered on empowering its workforce to look for essential solutions to make the industry stand in the global automotive and energy business environment. From the above statement, Tesla’s culture subjects its employees to innovative activities that always keep the company at the top (Pauline, 2019). The industry that Tesla operates in is very competitive and only innovation and new business ideas can help the company thrive. Tesla’s organizational culture plays a vital role in its employees' progress; once the employees are involved in innovative activities, they learn and build themselves for future opportunities.
Elon Musk has been in his current position, CEO of Tesla, from 1995 to the present. He was born in 1971 in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa; his parents had different careers, where the father was an Engineer with the mother being a model and nutritionist (Dan, 2020). He is the firstborn in the family of two other siblings. After the divorce of their parents, Elon chose to live with the father. He schooled both primary and secondary education in South Africa. He was subjected to computers where he learned programming skills, and by age 12, he created a game (blastar) and sold it for five hundred dollars. Musk then moved to Canada at the age of seventeen. His move to Canada was as a result of fleeing from serving in the military of South Africa. In Canada, the mother helped Elon to obtain Canada’s citizenship.
Elon later gets an enrollment into Queen’s University in Canada, where he meets Justin Wilson. They later get married and give birth to five male kids; however, their marriage ends in 2008 after a divorce. Before completing his education program at Queen’s University, he transfers to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. He later graduates with a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania. He adds another Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Wharton School. The two degrees shaped his career path. In 1995, together with his brother, he started ZIP2, a software Company. He later sells ZIP2 and starts X.com, which becomes PayPal afterward (Dan, 2020). After eBay took PayPal, Elon helped generate finances for an electric car company by the name Tesla. He then becomes the CEO of Tesla.
Tesla’s leadership style has been transformational leadership, as said by Stephanie (2020) . His leadership style is equated to the likes of Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs in their ranks as the most prominent CEOs of the twenty-first century. Both Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs are said to have a ‘transformational leadership’ style. The transformational leadership style is among other leadership styles provided by the Full Range Leadership Model theory. The theory consists of three unique leadership styles that vary according to how a leader engages with the people he leads. The difference between transformational leadership and the other two is that transformational leadership gives leaders the ability to inspire, motivate, and work closely with the employees to realize surprising outcomes. Transformational leadership requires keeping a leader on toes in surrounding himself with individuals determined to change the world. To confirm his transformational leadership style, Elon is doing the following; requirements f transformational leadership:
Inspiring his teammates
One of the critical facets of transformational leadership is having a vision for the organization. A leader is required to make the rest of the team members have faith in the vision and inspired over the same. To be factual, Elon once said, “A leader has to have a captivating goal for a company.” In his explanation, he said, “if one puts himself in the shoes of a global level talented individual, the person has to have faith that there must be a great outcome and the person must trust the company’s leader, that indeed, he is the right leader to work with” ( Stephanie, 2020). Dolly Singh, a former Human Resource leader at SpaceX, said that Elon’s ability to make people believe in him is what makes him who he is ( Stephanie, 2020) . Dolly emphasizes that Elon is determined for a better future and makes industries associated with him to have a good platform that assists in future improvement ( Stephanie, 2020) . He inspires his teammates to make all their undertakings great. For a company to realize its set goals, competency must be employed. Elon, therefore, can be termed as a competent person in his area of expertise.
Setting stretch goals
Over- inspiring goals are part of Elon’s ‘stretch goal’ plan. Stretch goals entail deep-seated projections that go beyond prevailing skills and performance ( Stephanie, 2020) . Elon Musk has created a couple of determined projections in which Tesla failed to meet many of them. The President of SpaceX testified Elon’s ability to set stretch goals by stressing that when Elon comes up with an idea, it is fundamental to listen and work on it as it may take the company to the next level ( Stephanie, 2020) . Stretch goals are equally vital in creating organizational and personal enthusiasm and accomplishment. The stretch goals set by Elon Musk is an indication of how much he valued transformational leadership. It is also evident how he transforms Tesla with his stretch goals; some are achieved while others not, and that is a milestone. The stretch goals set by Elon is a reflection of imagination as a leadership concept.
Challenging the status quo
Elon Musk is always involved in setting a bar for his company because he believes in making his path. He says that people are not supposed to be following new trends blindly, but instead, the status quo should be challenged and questioned ( Stephanie, 2020) . One example that demonstrates the challenge of a status quo is when Elon was under SpaceX. Shotwell argues that the employees under Elon did not have to look for future advancements but looked on the industry's development to draw ideas and clout them ( Stephanie, 2020) . Challenging the status quo gives one the best opportunity to assess new ideas and ascertain that their impacts will be positive before putting them into action.
Smart hiring
Elon Musk remains the sole decision-maker at Tesla. He knows which employee should stay and which one should leave. His determination to build an outstanding team is something to give applause. He believes that the best football team must have talented players because their talents are a big deal in winning trophies ( Stephanie, 2020) . With the above statement, he appears to be an honest leader to see the company taken to the next level; honesty is among leadership concepts that push a leader into a good performance. Elon insists that hiring the right people is ninety percent of the solutions to a company's problems.
Embracing failure
Influential leaders are not scared of failure. Elon Musk himself has experienced several of them without giving up. Failure is also among the expectations when trying something new. For instance, Tesla Cybertruck’s windows cracked twice under Elon Musk ( Stephanie, 2020) . He terms failure as evidence that his team is doing something disrupting. He supports the above statement by saying, “sometimes failure is a choice; if one is not failing then the individual is not innovating.” Elon is right because, for one to identify the company's problems, failure must be experienced. The identification of the problems will foster an improvement.
Using response to find answers
When an individual uses failure to find the issues facing an organization, the individual is brought to the limelight of finding the solutions to the issues to attain their goals. Elon is one such character who believes that the feedback of failure matters to him together with the team. He says, “When you experience failure, you constantly think what you have done and purpose to do it better” ( Stephanie, 2020). Apart from failure, Elon argues that feedbacks such as criticism makes one improve on his weaknesses. When one listens to criticism, he can assess whatever is going south and find a possible way to return it to the right track.
Valuing communication
Elon Musk always urges his teammates to have effective communication. An example is when he tables a letter to the rest of the employees, urging them to communicate as faster and efficiently as possible. In the same letter, he instructs them to avoid any kind of “chain of command” ( Stephanie, 2020). In the same letter, he says that communication needs to travel through the shortest path possible. Faster communication makes things done on time. Transformational leaders are expected to observe time as it is a determinant factor of success; faster communication can save time.
Elon Musk has faced several challenges in his pursuance to make Tesla great. He struggles to make Tesla the best in the industry, but there are challenges on his way. The first challenge is competition from other producers (Annie, 2018). With his team members, Elon is facing competition from other automobile industries. Companies like Porsche and Mercedes are keen to produce electric vehicles. This is a challenge that is putting Elon and his team members up to the task. The second challenge is the China X factor (Annie, 2018). The trade truce announced by the United States government could see Tesla benefiting, as many people thought. However, China was planning to launch its electric Vehicles by the end of 2019, an idea that could flood and cripple Tesla’s market. The third challenge is about legal issues that Elon is facing. Go-private is one of the legal issues that had given Elon a blow; however, he settled the issue (Annie, 2018). He has had issues with the SEC agency, where he has confirmed that he may not conform to his terms of clearance with the agency.
According to Michelle (2020), Elon Musk has significant achievements in his physics career, and as a leader, he created his electric vehicle manufacturing company that operates up to date. He created the company because he discourages the use of fossil fuels. He has created Gigafactories for solar and wind energy. The Gigafactories are functional up to date, and they are aimed at enhancing the manufacture of Lithium-ion batteries. Despite having their market, the batteries are also used in the Tesla Company to run the electric vehicles.
In conclusion, leaders are made and not born. An individual can aspire to be an effective leader. It takes an individual to learn about the requirements of good leadership to be a good leader. Elon Musk is an individual who is committed to learn and improve his leadership skills as he has experienced the outcomes of good leadership. His progress as a leader inspires a lot. From the entire leadership story of Elon Musk, it is evident that a leader’s success is determined by the type of leadership style used. It is essential to understand what an individual needs to help them think of the leadership concepts and styles that will shape their capability to lead. Also, the analysis of Elon Musk shows that strategic decisions are vital in keeping a company at the right level. Elon will remain among the critical CEOs that people will learn from throughout their lives. His leadership style is worth emulating.
References
Annie, G. (2018). Tesla’s 4 Biggest Challenges in 2019. The Street. https://www.thestreet.com/world/tesla-biggest-challenges-2019-14813474
Dan, B. (2020). How Elon Musk Became Elon Musk: A Brief Bibliography. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/061015/how-elon-musk-became-elon-musk.asp
Fleming, B. (2013). Electric vehicle collaboration-toyota motor corporation and tesla motors [automotive electronics]. IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine , 8 (1), 4-9. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6470757
Michelle, G. (2020). 5 Impressive Achievements by Elon Musk. TheFactsite. https://www.thefactsite.com/elon-musk-accomplishments/
Pauline, M. (2019). Tesla Inc.’s Organizational Culture and Its Characteristics (Analysis). PanmoreInstitute. http://panmore.com/tesla-motors-inc-organizational-culture-characteristics-analysis
Sikochi, S., Srinivasan, S., & Pitcher, Q. (2018). Tesla, Inc. in 2018. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55320
Stephanie, M. (2020). Elon Musk’s Leadership Style: 10 Strategies that he Uses Daily. ONE37PM. https://www.one37pm.com/grind/entrepreneurs/elon-musk-leadership-style#:~:text=1.,He%20Inspires%20His%20Team&text=One%20of%20the%20key%20tenets,company%2C%E2%80%9D%20Musk%20has%20explained .
Vance, A. (2015). Elon Musk . Harper Collins. http://dln.jaipuria.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/2732/1/Elon%20Musk%20Tesla%2C%20SpaceX%2C%20and%20the%20Quest%20for%20a%20Fantastic%20Future%20by%20Ashlee%20Vance.pdf
